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Thursday, October 05, 2006

Theopublican ship takes on more water.

The most recent Rasmussen polls are bad news for the Republicans. Take Tennessee, which ought to go Republican as an example. In the Senate race between Harold Ford (D) and Bob Corker (R) support has shifted. In a July poll the Republican had a lead of 11 points. In August his lead was only six points. By September his lead had dropped to one point. And now he trails by five points.

The Rasmussen people have been tracking how the likely outcome of the election would effect the balance of power in the US Senate. Again all bad news for the Theopublicans. There are 12 Senate seats that are considered flexible and the Democrats need to win all of them to take control of the Senate. That is a daunting task and one which people thought impossible only a couple of months ago.

In the middle of August four toss-up seats leaned Democrat, two leaned Republican and three were too close to say. But that’s only 9 seats when there are now 12 seats in the flexible category. Correct. Three safe Republican seats are no longer safe. More bad news for the Theopublicans.

By the beginning of September Rasmussen had five seats leaning Democrat, a gain of one, two still leaning Republican and five in the toss up category. Two weeks later the polls showed that seven states were now leaning Democrat, only three were toss ups and the Republicans were now down to just one of these states leaning in their direction. One week later they shifted again with the Democrats picking up another state. And now they show nine states leaning Democratic, only one leaning Republican and two too close to call.

The only state still leaning Republican is Virginia but the racist comments of their candidate there is coming back to haunt him. And the Democrat, Jim Webb, is a former Reagan official. The Republican has a six point lead still but in March he was leading by 24 points. That is seismic shift in support away from the Republicans.

New Jersey is still leaning Republican. Democrat Menendez may be hurting because of the upsurge in anti-Hispanic rhetoric from the extreme Right in the US. He is currently trailing the Theopublican by five points. But in Missouri the Democrat, Clair McCaskill, is now leading the race by three points. In May she was behind by the same amount.

Of the 15 Senate seats currently held by Theopublicans five now look they will go Democrat and one is leaning that way. One is fairly close and only eight appear safe. Of the 18 Democrat held seats 13 are considered safe, four look to be safe and only one is considered too close to call.

It still appears the Democrats will make major gains in the House of Representative, which they are likely to control, may take the Senate and will also occupy more Gubernatorial seats as well.

The real question is whether the Theopublicans will realise that it was Bush who took their parties to these depths and return to older principles of limited government and separation of church and state. Unless they begin the long journey back toward their principles they deserve each defeat. No one can argue that Democrats deserve to win but there is no question that the Theopublicans deserve to lose.